Digital isn't art?

[rgmoore]

Cool off. The Amish are famous for freezing history as the "best" way.

That isn't exactly what the Amish do, though. They don't accept all new technology, but they haven't just frozen time. As examples, they still use horse-drawn plows, but they use gas-powered accesorries on their farming equipment. They have telephones, but they keep them in communal areas so that they can use the phone when they need it rather than having others dictate when they should take calls; they don't have to worry about telemarketers calling them in the middle of dinner. If they need to travel long distances, they hop on a plane the same way everyone else does.
--

As with all creative work, the craft must be adequate for the demands of expression. I am disturbed when I find craft relegated to inferior consideration; I believe that the euphoric involvement with subject or self is not sufficient to justify the making and display of photographic images. --Ansel Adams

 

[knox]

Yep, pretty much! It's impossible for digital (at this point) to
have the front to back depth that film (analog) has simply by the
way the formats work.

sigh ...another "analog bigot"...

Name calling will not get you invited over for pie and cake and a cuddle by the fireplace. If I were a bigot I would not have 2 D1Xs. I make my decision and preference from experience, not just flapping my lips. I don't like being called names girly boy . . . . especially when it's only because I disagree with you, but if it makes your penile implant grow, then go ahead.

Think about what I said above (the reason u were compelled to call me a "bigot") . . THINK, the way the two formats recieve and store the 'light' coming through the lens . . . how CAN they be the same?

But film is by no
means analog.

WOW! uh . . say wha?

Yes, you read that correctly: film is a binary, dithered medium.
And at the moment of capture it is more "digital" than any
electronic sensor.

You really are reaching. Focused light hitting chemically enhanced film is digital eh?
Stored on film = digital?

whew . . it hurts too much to even attempt clarification and rebuttal.

Translation: you don't know enough about the topic at hand to
attempt clarification and rebuttal.

actually, it's because some are too dense to open their minds, so why try to explain?

If digital is not art, then film never was.

I never said digital couldn't be art.

Sometimes the digital emulation is better than the "real, actual
action". Want to talk about unsharp mask in the darkroom vs. in
Photoshop?

Who says everything has to be so sharp? What about the artifacts of PS? Digital people always go on and on about sharp. A sharp photo of a water drop is still JUST a shot of a water drop.

Why is it when you go to a art gallery you see much more film based
work then digital?

Because film has been around for over a century, while digital is
less than a decade old as far as fine art is concerned.

You mean the artists who are shooting film NOW are accepted "because film has been around for a century"?? Even though some of the artists have been around for 25 years? Gimme a break. . . .why is it then that some galleries WON'T accept digital images?

Why is it that more art style photographers
artists (not weekend bird shooters or water drop photo
'technicians') are shooting film, even 35 mm over digital? Is it
they see, sense and feel the difference though you don't?

I don't think that's true at all, and challenge the claim. Prove
that most "artists" still use film. They certainly don't from what
I can see.

Of course YOU wouldn't see it. And don't change my words . . I said "art style photographers" . . "galleries' . . . not digital imagists on the net.

Why don't I care? Because the discussion is about imaging systems,
not audio systems.

The comparison is valid. You must agree due to your dvd / sacd comment. Unless it's one more instance where you are trying to be right on ALL points.

BTW, do you feel the same way when listening to SACD or DVD audio?
Because the progress in digital imaging systems over the past 5
years is much more dramatic than the progress in digital audio over
the past 20.

yes . . .as an audio professional who has recorded music for the past 35 years, I will say from daily experience there IS still a huge difference between analog and digital . . .you can convert it / interface it anyway you want, it is still digital and it still sounds as such. I am in the studio, recording music daily . . . I hear the difference in the reverbs trailing off in real time as we record live . . . (room decays / tails etc) to the recorded digital medium. I hear the dimensions change from source to digital / analog. It's why I still record analog. I hear the roundness of the low end change . . .I whence easily from the high end. I could go on but you will have a rebuttal, even though I do this daily.

If you were here while I mix . . . we walked away from the console into an adjoining room, ask the assistant to switch from analog source to digital mix, you would be stunned at the difference. That's from say 25 feet away!!

Again, if digital were nirvana, why is it that digital recording software developers and A to D hardware converters are always building gear / software where they sell it as "analog" simulators? Go to all this trouble to buy all this digital cr*p, so you can autocorrect / autotune Britney, THEN try to make it sound like analog. Why not just record it analog and bypass the Britneys by NOT fixing them in a computer?

The analogy to photography is clear. It's in the medium.

Some people only see a difference between two images when you tell
them that one is "analog" and the other "digital"...whether or not
you've even told them the truth....

Are you there when I show them so you know what I say or don't say? I have a book coming out where I had to shoot the majority digitally. HAD TO is the key phrase. I can't tell you how the emotion dropped from digital images. The front to back depth I was trying to convey . . .the emotional involvement was compromised greatly. And when the Art Director resized them beyong what I wanted . . . man they looked terrible. Pixilation/ edgy / they look oversharpened on and on . . it's embarrassing. The film shots (even though they were converted to digital at the final stage) look much better in comparison.

It's a preference . . .you like digital, I use it under duress.
--
Knox
--
Avatar Photography
http://www.avatarphotoart.com
Alley Cats . . . Urban Tails (the book)
http://www.urbantailsbook.com
http://www.alleycatphotos.com
http://www.pbase.com/streetkid

 

[knox]

for me . . I feel it's important for us photographers who visualize different looks, to use the formats . . . or be open to using those formats that give certain looks. Not just expect one format to do it all. Nothing can do it all. Of course if what a person likes to shoot is not effected by a certain 'look' or emotion given by a format, then it's of no importance.

Since I went digital about 5 years ago, I have no need ever to use
film again. Just my feelings.

wll

--
Knox
--
Avatar Photography
http://www.avatarphotoart.com
Alley Cats . . . Urban Tails (the book)
http://www.urbantailsbook.com
http://www.alleycatphotos.com
http://www.pbase.com/streetkid

 

[Ed Leys20479]

Still, I have to admit, you're great fun to play with,

Comments like that and you wonder why I have zero respect for you?

Sigh, Ryan, You're a miserable poor mind reader. Why would I wonder a thing like that? Why would I even contemplate wondering it?

Don't answer, I'm not up to any more mind reading. Anyway, these could be considered rhetorical questions.

You're not worth my time. Goodbye Ed.

Now, if it were only so easy for you to stop giving us digital shooters a bad name. That would be your special gift to us.

Enjoy your time in the tent,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn

 

[tjack]

Cool off. The Amish are famous for freezing history as the "best" way.

That isn't exactly what the Amish do, though. They don't accept
all new technology, but they haven't just frozen time. As
examples, they still use horse-drawn plows, but they use
gas-powered accesorries on their farming equipment. They have
telephones, but they keep them in communal areas so that they can
use the phone when they need it rather than having others dictate
when they should take calls; they don't have to worry about
telemarketers calling them in the middle of dinner. If they need
to travel long distances, they hop on a plane the same way everyone
else does.

Yes, and so do photographers who often say that PhotoShop is OK as long as you are doing the same things you can do in a darkroom. That's using new technology in very old ways. Regardless, to each their own.

 

[mmelgar]

He obviously has an oppinion and an axe to grind but no coherent points to back up his position. This is one article that belongs in the waste bin.
--



Mike

http://www.doctormelgar.com/gallery

'Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.' - malcolm forbes

 

[charli]

just because someone is a writer dose'nt make them a good one.
he/she also seems to have a logic problem.

 

[superbouncykid]

I wonder if this guy really meant "creative" - still wrong of course.

It is possible, however, I don't think he has about the difference between "skill" and "creativity".

The problem with the word "art" is that (not so long ago) it DID mean simply craft or skill.

about 50 or 60 years...

Many usages with this meaning still survive, to confuse us, like "mastering an art", "artisan", "artful". The idea of > "fine art" has gone back and forth through the whole 20th century with nobody the wiser.

Actually, the idea of art equals being skillful is killed the moment photography entered the world. It brought the painting into an identity crisis (hence the abstract paintings). It is not only the technology though, with great technology comes great knowledge. People are better educated, we are more in tune as a thinking individual in comparision to the people in the past. The process of thinking, negociating with what we see, philosophing about life, has become an important element in the contemporary art.

What is the definition of art, then? Art is whatever disappears when you define it - art history is the sticky smears left over from trying to nail jelly to the wall ;-)

There is no one definition of art just because art is in itself obsolete. It is the creator who puts a meaning into it, but it is above all, the viewer who will receive something from the work. The art work is nothing more than a catalyst to provoke thought and dialogue.

To define art purely on "skill" or "hard work" is a limited view of art. Don't forget, great artists live by his art, day and night. When you do that, you develope an awareness that is beyond skill.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/namakumo

 

[Ryan McDaniel]

Yep, pretty much! It's impossible for digital (at this point) to
have the front to back depth that film (analog) has simply by the
way the formats work.

sigh ...another "analog bigot"...

Name calling will not get you invited over for pie and cake and a
cuddle by the fireplace. If I were a bigot I would not have 2
D1Xs.

Why do film/analog "bigots" always insist that owning a digital camera is proof they have no irrational biases when it is obvious that they do?

Think about what I said above (the reason u were compelled to call
me a "bigot") . . THINK, the way the two formats recieve and store
the 'light' coming through the lens . . . how CAN they be the same?

I don't know what you're talking about because I never claimed they were the same. I was pointing out a key difference, that film is a binary (i.e. "digital"), dithered medium, while electronic sensors produce analog signals proportional to the intput light.

Yes, you read that correctly: film is a binary, dithered medium.
And at the moment of capture it is more "digital" than any
electronic sensor.

You really are reaching. Focused light hitting chemically enhanced
film is digital eh?
Stored on film = digital?

Entry #4 for the word "digital" from Merriam-Webster (emphasis mine): of, relating to, or being data in the form of especially BINARY digits.

Grains are developed or not. Very much like pits on a CD (there or not), magnetic particles on a disk (orientated one way or the other), or charges in RAM (charged or not). Film is very binary at that level, very much like digital.

actually, it's because some are too dense to open their minds, so
why try to explain?

How is this statement worse than me calling you a "film bigot"?

If digital is not art, then film never was.

I never said digital couldn't be art.

I never said you did.

Sometimes the digital emulation is better than the "real, actual
action". Want to talk about unsharp mask in the darkroom vs. in
Photoshop?

Who says everything has to be so sharp?

Not a reply to my question. Digital emulation of the darkroom technique of unsharp masking is better because of its ease, immediacy, and its combination of fine control and wide range of options impossible to emulate in the darkroom.

How sharp a picture ends up depends entirely on how one uses the tool.

Why is it when you go to a art gallery you see much more film based
work then digital?

Because film has been around for over a century, while digital is
less than a decade old as far as fine art is concerned.

You mean the artists who are shooting film NOW are accepted
"because film has been around for a century"??

You didn't specify a gallery of only artists shooting NOW, images shot NOW. I doubt you would find such a gallery where all the artists were contemporary and there was a larger number of film shots.

Gimme a break. . .
.why is it then that some galleries WON'T accept digital images?

Probably film/analog bigots like yourself who believe they see some difference between "analog" film, which is actually binary, and "digital" electronic sensors, which actually produce analog signals.

I don't think that's true at all, and challenge the claim. Prove
that most "artists" still use film. They certainly don't from what
I can see.

Of course YOU wouldn't see it.

So you do not have the evidence to support your claim? Thank you.

Why don't I care? Because the discussion is about imaging systems,
not audio systems.

The comparison is valid. You must agree due to your dvd / sacd
comment. Unless it's one more instance where you are trying to be
right on ALL points.

It's not valid, and my dvd / sacd comment showed one reason why.

BTW, do you feel the same way when listening to SACD or DVD audio?
Because the progress in digital imaging systems over the past 5
years is much more dramatic than the progress in digital audio over
the past 20.

yes . . .

Could you prove your ability to recognize these presumed differences in a double blind study? Have you tried?

If you were here while I mix . . . we walked away from the console
into an adjoining room, ask the assistant to switch from analog
source to digital mix, you would be stunned at the difference.
That's from say 25 feet away!!

I bet, truth be told, if you had to participate in a double blind study, you would fail.

Some people only see a difference between two images when you tell
them that one is "analog" and the other "digital"...whether or not
you've even told them the truth....

Are you there when I show them so you know what I say or don't say?
I have a book coming out where I had to shoot the majority
digitally. HAD TO is the key phrase. I can't tell you how the
emotion dropped from digital images.

I can't tell you how much I would like to sit you in a room and force you to pick the digital and analog images not having any before hand knowledge of which is which, and watch your pet theories evaporate. You cling to what you know (35 years in the industry) regardless of facts. It's a typical human response.

 

[J Mankila]

Effort = Art

Nope. Effort + Skill + Creativity + X = art. Effort is a component
of it.

So you think there is an easy answer to the question that few can understand and if they claim they can, there's no way to prove it. "What is art?" ultimately isn't a question at all.

You can't say what is art and what is not. You just can't. If you can, you don't know what we rest are talking about.

Janne Mankila

 

[spt_gb]

Yep, pretty much! It's impossible for digital (at this point) to
have the front to back depth that film (analog) has simply by the
way the formats work.

sigh ...another "analog bigot"...

Name calling will not get you invited over for pie and cake and a
cuddle by the fireplace. If I were a bigot I would not have 2
D1Xs.

Why do film/analog "bigots" always insist that owning a digital
camera is proof they have no irrational biases when it is obvious
that they do?

Why has this come back to life?

The initial statement is wrong anyway. All it says (as far as I can make out) is that digital has more DOF because the sensors are smaller. 1Ds, 1DsII, 5D anyone? If you're going to start pointing at MF & LF then I'll point back at digital backs for both of the above. Film heads may prefer the look of particuar films in the same way that record buffs prefer LPs to CDs, but as far as I can see all of what they claim to prefer are imperfections in the analog system that can be replicated if required in the digital domain.

 

[J Mankila]

no text

 

[Tristan Cope]

My quote from that episode: "If you have to ask, it's not art!"

Don't you mean "If you don't have to ask it's not art".

If you know what it is, and what it means, it can't possibly be art.

Are you saying that in gest?

Yes, absolutely. I was being sarcastic. It's an unshakable British trait.

 

[Tristan Cope]

Surely we can all agree with this - digital photography per se is not art. Neither is traditional photography. Just because you point a camera and take a picture doesn't make that picture art. But you can make art with either process. In my opinion they are equally valid.

It has been suggested that a creation is art if the artist says it is. And for artists, this may be true.

On the other hand, perhaps it is the observer that defines what is art. For the observer this is certainly true.

If both the artist and the observer agree it is art - then you've got a sale.

Which brings us to another point. Are the aesthetic principles in the production of art purely for its own sake greater than those of "making art" to make a living. Perhaps the amateur is the true artist, and the professional is just a craftsman?

 

[PhotoTraveler]

What he is getting at in general has a lot of truth.

To make a print in a dark room takes work, there is no "Undo" button, you have to start over. So you really sit down and learn what you want to do, and do test and such. Not just sit there in photo shop plunking buttons to see what happens and then doing undo, and then doing this every time since you don't bother to really learn exactly how and what to do.

But the main part is the Copy/Paste/Print factor of digital. To make 10 prints with film will take you a bit of work. With digital, you just tell the printer to make 10. It's mass produced, can be spit out left and right and in 10 different forms.

Need more later, just que the file and print some more.

That's the problem, there is no limited ness too it. And the work put into making them is far less. One of the primary reasons people will buy a print is that there was effort in it's physical making, and was made in a small amount. And typical all handled by the photographer at some point.

Like anything else. Which has more value to you. The hand carved/crafted object that a craftsman worked on for some amount of time and only made a couple of. Or something that was spit out of an injection molding matching by the thousands?

It's not about the end product. The end product has value because of how it came to being. The end product needs to look good. But that alone doesn't cut it.

 

[Ben Lanterman74611]

A real artists uses chewed twigs for method, crushed berries and fat for media and draws on a cave wall. Everything since is just wnatabe stuff.

The film guys vs digital guys are just discussing whether or not they are chemists or phisicists.

--
Ben Lanterman

http://public.fotki.com/benlanterman/
http://webpages.charter.net/benlanterman/Index.html
http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=208093

 

[jimcollum]

What he is getting at in general has a lot of truth.

To make a print in a dark room takes work, there is no "Undo"
button, you have to start over. So you really sit down and learn
what you want to do, and do test and such. Not just sit there in
photo shop plunking buttons to see what happens and then doing
undo, and then doing this every time since you don't bother to
really learn exactly how and what to do.

that's true for b/w photography, but the majority of color photographic art is of the 'cut and paste' variety. the photographer hands the film to a pro lab, and that's it. they review the work, and for the most part, print #1 is the same as print #50. there's a lot of work/craft that goes on behind the scene at the lab.. color, contrast masks,etc.. but that's not part of the photographer's worry. there are exceptions to this (Christopher Burkett comes to mind).. but he's a minority

The initial part of the b/w darkroom work has a lot of 'delete forever' possiblities.. but once the first good print is made, then that photographer can also make print #1 the same as print #50. They can (and often do) change their view of what the final print will look like in going from #1 to #50.. but the digital printer can do that as well.

jim

 

[mark321123]

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71599-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

He admits:

The negative was your raw material -- ...-- but what you did with it once it was in the enlarger determined whether or not you walked out of there with a "photograph" or merely a "snapshot."

He is not talking about film having better dynamic range, or more
pleasing grain, or better colors...

In other words, it was hands-on. It required some honest sweat. It required time. When you were finished, and assuming you had done sterling work, you had produced a piece of art.

So, in his opinion, if someone manipulates a photo in a darkroom
they are an artist producing art... But if the same person makes
the same types of manipulations on the same image in Photoshop...

You are merely a technician with a good eye.

And, then he -really- "pulls my chain"...

Maybe Ansel Adams could have uploaded a boatload of pictures from his trip to Yosemite, then fiddled around in Photoshop to make 'em real purty. But it wouldn't have been the same.

No it wouldn't.

It wouldn't have been the same if he took a "boatload" of
"snapshots" on film, either. Sheesh...

--
Recent photos I've taken:
http://flickr.com/photos/mike_leone/sets/72157594218208901/

--
'Pull back skin before using'

 

[mark321123]

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71599-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

He admits:

The negative was your raw material -- ...-- but what you did with it once it was in the enlarger determined whether or not you walked out of there with a "photograph" or merely a "snapshot."

He is not talking about film having better dynamic range, or more
pleasing grain, or better colors...

In other words, it was hands-on. It required some honest sweat. It required time. When you were finished, and assuming you had done sterling work, you had produced a piece of art.

So, in his opinion, if someone manipulates a photo in a darkroom
they are an artist producing art... But if the same person makes
the same types of manipulations on the same image in Photoshop...

You are merely a technician with a good eye.

And, then he -really- "pulls my chain"...

Maybe Ansel Adams could have uploaded a boatload of pictures from his trip to Yosemite, then fiddled around in Photoshop to make 'em real purty. But it wouldn't have been the same.

No it wouldn't.

It wouldn't have been the same if he took a "boatload" of
"snapshots" on film, either. Sheesh...

--
Recent photos I've taken:
http://flickr.com/photos/mike_leone/sets/72157594218208901/

--
'Pull back skin before using'

 

[mark321123]

Something that anyone can do isn't really art, at least not
noteworthy art. For example anyone can doodle on a notepad, and
therfore doodling isn't art (unless it's exceptional doodling).

So to the extent that digital photography is easy (and it's a lot
easier than chemical darkroom photogrpahy), there isn't as much art
in it.

--
'Pull back skin before using'